Leo is losing the plot on both abortion and Brexit

AS I want to write about both the flagging Repeal the Eighth and the Brexit campaigns I will ration my rage about alleged breaches of data in INM while waiting for a fuller picture from the High Court hearing on April 16.

Meantime, I want to make two personal points. First, the former editor of the Sunday Independent, Anne Harris, was the first journalist to voice a prescient concern about possible data breaches.

Second, I am proud to write for the Sunday Independent. Like all INM newspapers, our journalists have never given an inch to the IRA or its political apologists — and that’s some service to Irish democracy.

Let’s hope nothing happens to stifle our sterling service to Irish democracy.

Moving on. The Repeal the Eighth (Repeal for short) train is slowing and the Taoiseach is to blame.

First, he was too slow in committing himself at the start. He was a full week behind Micheal Martin’s forthright support for abortion up to 12 weeks — and it weakened momentum.

When he finally broke silence — on the BBC of all places — he promised to personally campaign for liberalisation. But precious little sign of that so far.

Second, the Taoiseach appointed all the ministers who keep making mistakes that cause the campaign to cough and wheeze and stop to catch its breath.

Simon Coveney is the worst of them. But he has already got so much stick for messing that I haven’t the heart to land any more blows on his hapless back.

Simon Harris tries hard but he still comes across as somewhat limp and lacking in cop about context.

Last week he said he could not guarantee that legislation allowing for abortion would be passed if Repeal was passed.

At first sight simply a statement of the bleeding obvious. But everything is connected during a political campaign, so it dampened the morale of the Repealers.

Finally, the Taoiseach showed no savvy in appointing Josepha Madigan, Minister for Culture, as co-ordinator of a Fine Gael group to campaign for Repeal.

Madigan does not exude the energy needed to excite campaign teams to canvass con brio. Regina Doherty, who can press the flesh like Lyndon Johnson, would have been a better choice.

The Taoiseach has also made a mess of Brexit and the hope of a soft border by bashing the Brits and alienating unionists — both of whose goodwill is essential for a good ending.

Last Friday, Lord David Trimble, an architect of the Good Friday Agreement, warned that Dublin’s Brexit rhetoric was fuelling loyalist fears.

Led by David Ervine, many loyalists backed the Good Friday Agreement believing it meant Sinn Fein would stop nagging about a united Ireland until unionists looked for one.

But Sinn Fein’s policy is to pick at the scab of a united Ireland no matter what misery it may cause on both parts of the island.

Compliant political correspondents have failed to take the Taoiseach to task for the part played by the Government’s loose talk stoking loyalist fears.

Loyalists noted the Taoiseach’s bluster about not “abandoning” Northern nationalists as well as Coveney’s grandstanding about hoping for a united Ireland in his lifetime — and saw how this green rhetoric gave credibility to Sinn Fein calls for a border poll.

Instead of pointing out that this cynical policy benefits Fine Gael and Sinn Fein but is bad for Ireland, the political press continues to validate Varadkar rather than give credit to a prudent patriot like Micheal Martin who refuses to risk peace by beating tribal drums.

So far most political pundits seemed to have missed the many signals showing the Taoiseach is playing footsie with Sinn Fein as foreplay for a deal after the next general election. But other observers are not so blind.

Andy Pollak, a veteran activist for reconciliation, in a recent blog asked a rhetorical question: “Do I detect a cosying up by that most middle class and non-Republican of political parties, Fine Gael, to the party of the Provisionals?”

Pollak cites one example of Fine Gael secretly sucking up to Sinn Fein which he got accidentally, thanks to an email gremlin.

Here is Andy Pollak’s account: “I was erroneously copied into an email from the Taoiseach’s adviser on the North, former senator Jim D’Arcy, in which he commiserated with Sinn Fein chairman Declan Kearney on having to suspend Senator Maire Devine for re-tweeting an ugly remark about Brian Stack, the Irish prison officer murdered by the IRA. D’Arcy emailed: “Tough day for you, Declan. You did well! Sorry for your girl… A nice person!”

Jim D’Arcy, whose appointment I welcomed, accepts that the quote is accurate. In fairness to him, he may have been engaged in an emollient ploy to soften Sinn Fein.

If so, it has backfired badly and added to the damage that began when the Taoiseach took Foreign Affairs out of the safe hands of Charlie Flanagan.

Flanagan has shown safe hands in Justice, too. During the Easter break he was at his desk, responding rapidly to the Belfast rape trial by announcing a review of trials here.

Flanagan also found time for the Maamtrasna pardon. Here he can even claim the posthumous support of the highest Tory of the time.

Lord Salisbury, leader of the Tory opposition, confided that Earl Spencer, the Gladstone government’s viceroy in Ireland (who had connived to get the false conviction), was a complete moron.

Even JL Hammond, Gladstone’s passionate defender on Ireland, believed the biggest injustice was the fact that all the accused were monoglot Irish speakers.

In passing, I forgive The Irish Times for misspelling the Irish word for pardon maithiunas as maithiunais — provided it stops sitting on a high horse about the need for an Irish Language Act in Northern Ireland.

But I draw the line at the paper slyly trying to credit President Michael D Higgins with what was Charlie Flanagan’s decision.

Curiously, Bunreacht na hEireann mainly vests the power to pardon in the President — but with the odd proviso that the Dail could also legislate on pardons.

The Dail did exactly that in the 1950s by stripping the power of pardon from the gregarious President Sean T O Ceallaigh and giving it back to the Minister for Justice.

Who’s next for a Presidential pardon? George Plant, executed in 1942, may have a case on grounds of equity.

Three IRA men were convicted of a political murder by a military court. But only Plant was singled out to be shot. Was this because they were Catholics and Plant was a Protestant?

***** Unlike most Liverpool fans, I know little about football. But I know a bit about bad commentaries.

Given the atmosphere at Anfield, George Hamilton and Ray Houghton should have shut up for a while and let the cameras roam among the chanting fans.

They should also cut the cognitive dissonance caused by stuffing us with factoids about past games while we are following the present game. In football commentary, as in everything else, less is more.

‘Ministers are making errors and causing the Repeal campaign to cough and wheeze’